Robert Mueller has the heart of a Las Vegas hooker and the guile of a New Orleans stripper. Not to push the metaphor too far, he’s skilled at showing a little skin in a cloud of satin and lace, but never quite comes across with what the customer is paying for.

Mr. Mueller, held up by his fellow Blackstones as a model of lawyerly rectitude, teased everyone last week that after testing his prowess to the limit, he had hooked a mighty tuna. His hallelujah chorus in the media celebrated the hundred-pound monster, but overnight it melted into a two-inch goldfish.

The special prosecutor might yet get the last laugh. He may yet land the promised tuna if there’s actually one out there in the briny deep. So far he’s coming up with nothing but net. The Associated Press, which has never been accused of giving Republicans a break, called the arrest “lots of smoke, but no smoking gun.” The “lots of smoke” looked as the new week began as merely a thin tuft of smoke, or more likely a wisp of fog.

The president’s sharpest detractors, agreed CNBC News, among the most fervent of those detractors, have so far been unable to find evidence that the Trump campaign coordinated with, or was even aware of, Russian efforts to swing the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

The Democrats figure that since the tuna turned out to be a goldfish, it’s time to resurrect something dead from the recent past. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose Senate seat has been getting a little warm, resurrected a notion discarded earlier that Mr. Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey as director of the FBI. Mr. Comey is best buds with Robert Mueller, who has never given up trying to rehabilitate Mr. Comey from goat to grandee. Only last week Mr. Comey himself took a turn as Bible scholar, attempting to apply a verse from the Book of Amos (5:24) — “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream” — to Mr. Mueller’s search for a crime. A Bible verse in the hands of a novice can be like a child with a gun.

Alan Dershowitz thinks the idea that the president, by sacking Mr. Comey, obstructed justice is nonsense. Mr. Dershowitz, the distinguished law professor at Harvard, warned Mrs. Feinstein and Democrats who are trying to build a case that the president obstructed justice that they’re wasting their time.

“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate. That’s what Thomas Jefferson did, that’s what Lincoln did, that’s what Roosevelt did. We have precedents that clearly establish that.”

The president’s tweets are making trouble for him again. Some Democrats, eager for something, anything, to hang their hats on, argue that Mr. Trump’s tweet on Sunday “suggested” that the president knew former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI, and that implies obstruction of justice. Or it might only be that these Democrats inferred that that’s what the president did. They should study the difference. A desperate Democrat might infer a lot of fake stuff. To pursue a president for obstruction would ultimately require that “clearly illegal acts” would have to have been committed.

This is what some of Mr. Trump’s pursuers would call mere technicalities in the law. Destroying Donald Trump is of such transcendent purpose, the goal of every right-thinking American, that anything goes. Ask any never-Trumper. What does the Constitution have to do with it, anyway? Six and seven decades of drinking the poison that the Constitution is only “a living document,” subject to reinterpretation to fit any theory of the law, has done great damage.

The Flynn episode might be the needed tutorial in constitutional law. Lawyer and layman alike can learn something useful. Alan Dershowitz thinks Mr. Trump’s lawyers should learn something, too. Legally speaking, he says, Mr. Flynn was “up for sale,” and his “credibility is worthless” since he has been credibly accused of perjury.

“I think the administration is not aggressive enough with [Mr.] Mueller,” Mr. Dershowitz told Laura Ingraham of Fox News last week. “They should be in court challenging what he has been doing. He is going far beyond any possible scope of his investigation.”

The president’s lawyers could be challenging subpoenas, and who are called as witnesses. An investigation, whether called for or not, should be done with a semblance of fairness or it will invite a generation of vipers to do their evil work. If Donald Trump is half as bad as the Democrats say he is, Robert Mueller does not need a railroad to get to where he’s trying to go.

The testimony of James Comey proved long on atmospherics and short on ethics. While many were riveted by Comey’s discussion of his discomfort in meetings with President Trump, most seemed to miss the fact that Comey was describing his own conduct in strikingly unethical terms. The greatest irony is that Trump succeeded in baiting Comey to a degree that even Trump could not have imagined. After calling Comey a “showboat” and poor director, Comey proceeded to commit an unethical and unprofessional act in leaking damaging memos against Trump.

Comey described a series of ethical challenges during his term as FBI director. Yet, he almost uniformly avoided taking a firm stand in support of the professional standards of the FBI. During the Obama administration, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave Comey a direct order to mislead the public by calling the ongoing investigation a mere “matter.” Rather than standing firm on the integrity of his department and refusing to adopt such a meaningless and misleading term, Comey yielded to Lynch while now claiming discomfort over carrying out the order.

When Trump allegedly asked for Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn or pledge loyalty, Comey did not tell the president that he was engaging in wildly inappropriate conduct. He instead wrote a memo to file and told close aides. He now says that he wishes he had the courage or foresight to have taken a stand with the president.

However, the clearest violation came in the days following his termination. Comey admits that he gave the damaging memos to a friend at Columbia Law School with the full knowledge that the information would be given to the media. It was a particularly curious moment for a former director who was asked by the president to fight the leakers in the government. He proceeded in becoming one of the most consequential leakers against Trump.

Comey said that he took these actions days after his termination, when he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and realized suddenly that the memos could be used to contradict Trump. It was a bizarrely casual treatment of material that would be viewed by many as clearly FBI information. He did not confer with the FBI or the Justice Department. He did not ask for any classification review despite one of the parties described being the president of the United States. He simply sent the memos to a law professor to serve as a conduit to the media.

As a threshold matter, Comey asked a question with regard to Trump that he should now answer with regard to his own conduct. Comey asked why Trump would ask everyone to leave the Oval Office to speak with Comey unless he was doing something improper. Yet, Trump could ask why Comey would use a third party to leak these memos if they were his property and there was nothing improper in their public release.

In fact, there was a great deal wrong with their release, and Comey likely knew it. These were documents prepared on an FBI computer addressing a highly sensitive investigation on facts that he considered material to that investigation. Indeed, he conveyed that information confidentially to his top aides and later said that he wanted the information to be given to the special counsel because it was important to the investigation.

Many in the media have tried to spin this as not a “leak” because leaks by definition only involve classified information. That is entirely untrue as shown by history. Leaks involve the release of unauthorized information — not only classified information. Many of the most important leaks historically have involved pictures and facts not classified but embarrassing to a government. More importantly, federal regulations refer to unauthorized disclosures not just classified information.

Comey’s position would effectively gut a host of federal rules and regulations. He is suggesting that any federal employee effectively owns documents created during federal employment in relation to an ongoing investigation so long as they address the information to themselves. FBI agents routinely write such memos in investigations. They are called 302s to memorialize field interviews or fact acquisitions. They are treated as FBI information.

The Justice Department routinely claims such memos as privileged and covered by the deliberative process privilege and other privileges. Indeed, if this information were sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) it would likely have been denied. Among other things, the Justice Department and FBI routinely claim privilege “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.”

Of course, Comey did not know if there was a privilege or classification claim by either the Justice Department or the White House because he never asked for review. He just woke up in the middle of night upset about Trump’s name calling and released the damaging information. In doing so, he used these memos not as a shield but a sword.

Besides being subject to nondisclosure agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and unclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641, which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”

There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation. The FBI website warns employees that “dissemination of FBI information is made strictly in accordance with provisions of the Privacy Act; Title 5, United States Code, Section 552a; FBI policy and procedures regarding discretionary release of information in accordance with the Privacy Act; and other applicable federal orders and directives.”

One such regulation is § 2635.703, on the use of nonpublic information, which states, “An employee shall not engage in a financial transaction using nonpublic information, nor allow the improper use of nonpublic information to further his own private interest or that of another, whether through advice or recommendation, or by knowing unauthorized disclosure.”

The standard FBI employment agreement bars the unauthorized disclosure of information “contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI” that impact the bureau and specifically pledges that “I will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.”

Had Comey taken the minimal step of seeking clearance, the department would likely have said that this was FBI information and not personal information. Comey instead decided to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

Comey is also subject to bar rules on releasing information inimical to the interests of his former employer. For example, under professional rule 1.6, lawyers need to secure authority to release information that “(1) reveal a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client; (2) use a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client to the disadvantage of the client; [or] (3) use a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client for the advantage of the lawyer or of a third person.”

Comey actually showed both how to and how not to disclose such information. When Comey released the information, he knew that he was going to be called to Congress where he could disclose this information properly after giving the White House a chance to claim privilege. Instead, he decided to release the information early. Why?

Comey gave two equally implausible explanations. First, he suggested that he wanted to get the information to investigators. However, he knew not only that he was likely to testify but that these memos would inevitably be demanded by both congressional and federal investigators. Second, he said that he wanted to ensure the appointment of a special counsel. However on that Monday, many of us were saying that such an appointment was virtually inevitable. More importantly, he could have given the memos to investigators and properly laid the foundation for a special counsel.

The fact is that the leaking of the memos worked to the advantage of James Comey, not Robert Mueller. Comey was able to take over the narrative and news cycle after Trump had publicly belittled him and his record. Special counsels do not like leaks of this kind. It would have been far better for the special counsel (or Comey’s own former investigatory team and congressional investigators) to have the memos confidentially.

The greatest value of the memos would be to question Trump and other potential targets without their knowing of their existence. The memos could then have been used to establish false statements and pressure cooperation. Instead, Comey told possible targets, including Trump, about the evidence against them in the memos.

Donald Trump continues to show a remarkable ability to bring out the worst in people — supporters and critics alike. In this case, he was able to bait Comey with his tweets and cause Comey to diminish his own credibility. If the comments of Trump were grossly inappropriate, Comey’s response to those comments were equally inappropriate.

President Trump said Friday that he would “100 percent” be willing to testify under oath that he never told former FBI Director James Comey that he “hoped” Comey would drop the bureau’s investigation of former national security adviser Mike Flynn.

In a news conference in the Rose Garden with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Trump also said he would be “glad” to tell his side of the story to special counsel Robert Mueller.

“I didn’t say that,” Trump said when asked whether he asked Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn. “I will tell you, I didn’t say that. And there would be nothing wrong if I did say it, according to everybody that I’ve read today, but I did not say that.”

Trump also denied Comey’s account that the president had asked his former FBI director to pledge loyalty.

“I hardly know the man,” Trump said of Comey. “Who would ask a man to pledge allegiance? Who would do that?”

The mainstream media, left-wing Democrats, and “Never Trump” Republicans all breathlessly hoped for weeks that former FBI director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee would be the beginning of the end of President Donald Trump’s presidency.

Mainstream media cable networks like CNN had countdown clocks. Broadcast networks covered the hearing as if it would go down as one of the most seminal events in the history of the country. “Never Trump” Republicans were getting ready to be used as the mainstream media’s useful idiots and get their predictable television hits and quotes in mainstream media publications. Left-wing Democrats were dreaming of drafting articles of impeachment. They lionized Comey as their hero who would help them destroy Trump once and for all.

Not so fast.

After nearly three hours of testimony, Comey established that Trump did not collude with Russia and, as Breitbart’s Joel Pollak pointed out, “all but destroyed any hope Democrats had for bringing a case of obstruction of justice.”

The press and anti-Trump forces on the left and right were still hoping for “new information” that would destroy Trump. But to their surprise—and chagrin—the only new bits of information Comey revealed actually made Comey, the mainstream press, and Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton and then-President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch, look bad before a captivated national audience.

In the end, Comey, Democrats, Never Trumpers, and the mainstream press turned out be losers while Trump, especially because the mainstream media so overhyped the hearing, emerged as the victor.

LOSERS:

Mainstream Media

NBC’s Chuck Todd set the table on Sunday for the mainstream media’s breathless coverage, predicting that Comey’s testimony “may well join those rare historic moments when the whole country stops to watch. Think Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. Watergate hearings in 1973. Oliver North’s testimony in the Iran Contra hearings in 1987, and of course Anita Hill at the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991.”

But the media got the sense that Comey’s testimony would be a dud for them on Wednesday when Comey released his introductory statement in which he confirmed Trump’s account that Comey had told Trump on multiple occasions that the President was not under FBI investigation.

Before, during, and after Comey’s testimony, the mainstream press looked as deflated as Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James did after Golden State’s Kevin Durant drained a go-ahead pull-up three-pointer in the waning moments of game three of the NBA Finals on Wednesday evening.

Trump felt “vindicated” by Comey’s introductory remarks, which may be why Comey conveniently decided not to read them before a captivated national audience.

“I’ve submitted my statement for the record, and I’m not going to repeat it here this morning,” he said.

Comey, though, revealed some information that further discredited the mainstream press that had deliberately ginned up talk of impeachment. They did so by using stories based solely on anonymous sources and double hearsay—some of which have since been discredited.

The former FBI director told Senators that the New York Times’ February 14 article, based on four anonymous sources, that suggested Trump’s campaign possibly colluded with Russians a year before the 2016 presidential campaign was “not true.”

Sen. James Risch (R-ID) pointed out that after the story’s publication, Comey “sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not the case. This is not factual.”

“In the main, it was not true,” Comey said of the story. “And again, all of you know this. Maybe the American people don’t. The challenge, and I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information, is the people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on, and going on are not talking about it. We don’t call the press to say, hey, you don’t that thing wrong about the sensitive topic. We have to leave it there.”

Comey said there were many more mainstream media articles about the FBI’s Russia investigation, based on anonymous sources, that were “dead wrong.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) asked Comey: “Have there been news accounts about the Russian investigation or collusion about the whole event or as you read the story you were wrong about how wrong they got the facts?”

“Yes, there have been many, many stories based on — well, lots of stuff but about Russia that are dead wrong,” Comey responded.

On Wednesday, ABC and CNN falsely reported, based on their anonymous sources, that Comey would dispute Trump’s claim that Comey told him he was never under investigation. When he fired Comey, Trump wrote: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”

Before Comey released his introductory remarks, CNN’s Gloria Borger claimed “Comey is expected to explain to senators that those were much more nuanced conversations from which Trump concluded that he was not under investigation.” CNN, citing an anonymous source, reported that Comey would “refute” Trump during his testimony and “say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so.” CNN then had to issue this embarrassing correction:

CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.

In addition, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) pointed out that the only bit of information that the Deep State did not leak to the mainstream press was the fact that Trump was not under investigation.

Comey also revealed that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch pressured him into misleading the public about the FBI’s “investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s emails. And yet, the mainstream media never dug enough to report that bit of inconvenient news.

James Comey

Comey’s surprising revelation that he orchestrated the leaking of his “contemporaneous” memo to the mainstream media raised more questions than answers.

When Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) asked Comey if he showed his memos to anyone outside the Justice Department, Comey matter-of-factly revealed that he asked his friend to leak his memo to the mainstream media.

“I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons,” he said. “I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. I asked a close friend to do it.”

Comey revealed that his “close friend” is a professor at Columbia law school. Reporters later determined that that person is Daniel Richman. Richmond’s Columbia University bio states that he “is currently an adviser to FBI Director James B. Comey.”

“I asked—the president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there’s not tapes,” Comey stated. “I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn’t dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might a tape. My judgement was, I need to get that out into the public square.”

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said he found “Comey’s admission to be deeply troubling from a professional and ethical standpoint.”

“Would Director Comey have approved such a rule for FBI agents?” he asked. “Thus, an agent can prepare a memo during office hours on an FBI computer about a meeting related to his service . . . but leak that memo to the media. The Justice Department has long defined what constitutes government documents broadly.”

He added that “it is not clear if Comey had the documents reviewed for classification at the confidential level or confirmed that they would be treated as entirely private property. What is clear is that he did not clear the release of the memos with anyone in the government.”

“Comey’s statement of a good motivation does not negate the concerns over his chosen means of a leak. Moreover, the timing of the leak most clearly benefited Comey not the cause of a Special Counsel,” Turley added. “It was clear at that time that a Special Counsel was likely. More importantly, Comey clearly understood that these memos would be sought. That leads inevitably to the question of both motivation as well as means.” There are also questions about whether Comey may have lied under oath about when he actually leaked his own memo.

Comey, after accusing Trump of lying about and defaming the FBI, also tried to paint Trump as a serial liar.

“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document,” he said. “That combination of things I had never experienced before, but had led me to believe I got to write it down and write it down in a very detailed way.”

He added, “my common sense, again I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what’s going on here is, he’s looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.”

But the bottom line is on the most important point—whether Comey told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not under investigation—Trump was telling the truth all along, even though mainstream media outlets like the Associated Press did everything to make American doubt Trump.

Obama Administration/Loretta Lynch

Comey’s testimony revealed that there may be just as many—if not more—questions surrounding the Obama administration regarding possible malfeasance.

When asked if former President Bill Clinton’s infamous tarmac meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch led him to go public with the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Comey said, “yes,” adding that the incident was conclusively “the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the justice department.”

Comey later revealed that he felt “queasy” when Lynch “had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me, but that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly.”

“I don’t know whether it was intentional or not but it gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way it was describing that,” he said. “It was inaccurate. We had an investigation open for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we had an investigation open at the time. That gave me a queasy feeling.”

Even CNN’s Chris Cilizza had to begrudgingly admit that Loretta Lynch “is having a surprisingly bad day in the Comey testimony.”

Liberals and left-wing activists in places like San Francisco reportedly took the day off of work to attend various “viewing parties.

As soon as Trump fired Comey, the usual “Never Trump” suspects like Ana Navarro, Jennifer Rubin, and Max Boot immediately started floating the idea of “impeachment.” Boot predicted that “if Democrats take control of Congress in 2018, the firing of Comey will form one of the articles of impeachment.” Rubin added that “House R’s should consider: Either a special pros/select committee now or impeachment if D’s take House.”

But it was a bad day for Democrats and Never Trumpers looking to ramp up their impeachment demands.

Even MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had to concede that Comey’s testimony revealed that there is no case to be made that Trump colluded with the Russians.

And as Breitbart’s Pollak pointed out, Comey’s exchange with Risch destroyed their hopes of bringing an “obstruction of justice” against Trump. Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz also declared that there is “no plausible case” that Trump obstructed justice. In his memo, Comey recalled that Trump told him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

As Risch pointed out, Comey may have “taken it as direction but that’s not” exactly what Trump said:

RISCH: You may have taken it as a direction but that’s not what he said.

COMEY: Correct.

RISCH: He said, I hope.

COMEY: Those are his exact words, correct.

RISCH: You don’t know of anyone ever being charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement?

COMEY: I don’t as I sit here.

Having no case for impeachment after Comey’s Thursday testimony, it is not surprising that there has was not a peep about impeachment from left-wing Democrats like Rep. Maxine “Get Ready for Impeachment” Waters (D-CA). Instead, Waters was railing against Wall Street. Mainstream media journalists were complaining about Trump’s character, mendacity, and temperament. Showing her Trump Derangement Syndrome, Rubin, though, continued to bring up potential impeachment.

As George Washington’s Turley pointed out, though, “having a duplicitous or dishonest nature is not an impeachable offense. Indeed, if that standard were applied in Washington generally, it would be a ghost town.”

“The saturation of Watergate analogies in the media however seems wildly detached from either the actual testimony or history. If Watergate was a cancer growing on the presidency, this is still little more than a canker sore — not great to look at but hardly life threatening,” Turley continued. “It could get worse but what Comey described in his testimony was boorish and even brutish but not necessarily an indictable or impeachable offense. Article I is not a book of etiquette for presidents. If Trump said these things to Comey, they are incredibly improper and ill-advised. Yet, the Nixon comparison works in favor of the position of Trump more than it does Comey.”

WINNER: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Is he getting tired of winning yet?

Liberal anchors like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews conceded that there is no case for collusion. Comey’s exchange with Risch will make it difficult to bring an “obstruction of justice” against Trump. It turned out that Comey initiated the first one-on-one meeting with Trump during the transition period.

During his testimony, Comey reiterated that Trump never asked him to stop the FBI’s Russia investigation and was never under investigation in the first place. He also revealed that it is normal for foreign governments to reach out to officials in the incoming administration. He vindicated Trump’s claims about the “fake news” mainstream media. He reminded Americans that “the law required no reason at all” for Trump to fire an FBI director.

Comey testified that he was “confident” that no votes in the 2016 presidential election were altered. “When I left as director I had seen no indication of that whatsoever,” he said.

The bottom line is the media hyped Comey’s hearing so much that Trump would have emerged as the winner so long as Comey didn’t have a “smoking gun” or dropped a “bombshell” that proved Trump colluded with the Russians.

Though Trump reportedly decided the night before Comey’s testimony that he would not live-tweet rebuttals, the fact that he did not feel compelled to tweet during Comey’s testimony said it all. It turns out that when it came to the most important points, Trump did not have much to rebut.

The FBI, as Comey lays out in a tedious opening that he knows his Democrat admirers will skip over to get to the juicy Trump stuff, was conducting a “counterintelligence investigation” not a criminal investigation. So there was no crime. Nor was the FBI investigating Trump. Nor is Trump being accused of obstructing an FBI investigation.

All those carefully documented memos, the painstaking labor, amount to absolutely nothing.

But that’s because there was no crime to begin with. The rest is innuendo. The drip drop of a scandal without one ever materializing. Comey’s testimony will be another drop from that leaky faucet.Itsonly substance is theatrical. Detailed documentation creates the appearance of wrongdoing. Constant hearings maintain the illusion that something is being uncovered. Even when nothing is.

***************************

Never has one man broken more leftist hearts than James Brien Comey Jr.

The 6’8 former FBI director is once again the object of the left’s adoration. “A Beltway dreamboat, handsome as a movie star,” Salon gushes. “Our handsome young FBI director,” Gizmodo flutters its eyelashes. “How tall is James Comey? Tall. Like, really tall,” the Boston Globe coos.

Now the Beltway dreamboat will be appearing live and in person in the Senate. It’s the biggest show in a big government town. Teenage girls hunting for Justin Bieber tickets have nothing on the media frenzy.

“The Comey Testimony: When, Where and How to Follow,” the New York Times breathlessly posts. As if it’s the World Series instead of awkward exchanges between a resentful lifer government man, Senate Democrats trying to prove that President Trump didn’t win the election and the moon landing was faked, and Senate Republicans trying to get on with the business of running the country.

And the left shouldn’t get too caught up in its new romance with James Comey. Not when his on and off again relationship with the media is Washington’s biggest soap opera. Comey saved Hillary. Then he got the blame for costing her the election. He was a hero for supposedly investigating Trump. Then his Hillary testimony led to media outrage. Trump fired him and he became a hero again.

The Washington Post went from “James Comey just stepped in it, big time” to “James Comey, is this man bothering you?”, “20 questions senators should ask James Comey” and “James Comey’s written testimony inspired this playlist” in one month. Tomorrow it might be, “James Comey, we baked this cake for you.” Or it might be, “James Comey, we hate you and never want to see you again.”

Because James Comey has nothing except resentment at losing a cushy job he wasn’t very good at.

Comey’s career was doomed when he became a player in Democrat conspiracy theories. First, the left blamed him for Hillary’s defeat. Then it enlisted him as its champion to prove the election was hacked.

And the Beltway dreamboat can’t deliver. The curtain rises. The spotlight comes down. And Comey coughs out his carefully worded memos that describe in detail the furniture of the Oval Office.

No really.

“When the door by the grandfather clock closed… Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock… I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock.”

The FBI, as Comey lays out in a tedious opening that he knows his Democrat admirers will skip over to get to the juicy Trump stuff, was conducting a “counterintelligence investigation” not a criminal investigation. So there was no crime. Nor was the FBI investigating Trump. Nor is Trump being accused of obstructing an FBI investigation.

All those carefully documented memos, the painstaking labor, amount to absolutely nothing.

But that’s because there was no crime to begin with. The rest is innuendo. The drip drop of a scandal without one ever materializing. Comey’s testimony will be another drop from that leaky faucet. Its only substance is theatrical. Detailed documentation creates the appearance of wrongdoing. Constant hearings maintain the illusion that something is being uncovered. Even when nothing is.

The better question is why do the memos even exist?

The left would like to believe that Comey was gathering evidence on President Trump. But they don’t contain anything incriminating about him. Instead Comey was trying to preemptively protect himself. To understand that is to understand who Comey is and why he got into this mess.

Never has one man broken more leftist hearts than James Brien Comey Jr.

The 6’8 former FBI director is once again the object of the left’s adoration. “A Beltway dreamboat, handsome as a movie star,” Salon gushes. “Our handsome young FBI director,” Gizmodo flutters its eyelashes. “How tall is James Comey? Tall. Like, really tall,” the Boston Globe coos.

Now the Beltway dreamboat will be appearing live and in person in the Senate. It’s the biggest show in a big government town. Teenage girls hunting for Justin Bieber tickets have nothing on the media frenzy.

“The Comey Testimony: When, Where and How to Follow,” the New York Times breathlessly posts. As if it’s the World Series instead of awkward exchanges between a resentful lifer government man, Senate Democrats trying to prove that President Trump didn’t win the election and the moon landing was faked, and Senate Republicans trying to get on with the business of running the country.

And the left shouldn’t get too caught up in its new romance with James Comey. Not when his on and off again relationship with the media is Washington’s biggest soap opera. Comey saved Hillary. Then he got the blame for costing her the election. He was a hero for supposedly investigating Trump. Then his Hillary testimony led to media outrage. Trump fired him and he became a hero again.

The Washington Post went from “James Comey just stepped in it, big time” to “James Comey, is this man bothering you?”, “20 questions senators should ask James Comey” and “James Comey’s written testimony inspired this playlist” in one month. Tomorrow it might be, “James Comey, we baked this cake for you.” Or it might be, “James Comey, we hate you and never want to see you again.”

Because James Comey has nothing except resentment at losing a cushy job he wasn’t very good at.

Comey’s career was doomed when he became a player in Democrat conspiracy theories. First, the left blamed him for Hillary’s defeat. Then it enlisted him as its champion to prove the election was hacked.

And the Beltway dreamboat can’t deliver. The curtain rises. The spotlight comes down. And Comey coughs out his carefully worded memos that describe in detail the furniture of the Oval Office.

No really.

“When the door by the grandfather clock closed… Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock… I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock.”

The FBI, as Comey lays out in a tedious opening that he knows his Democrat admirers will skip over to get to the juicy Trump stuff, was conducting a “counterintelligence investigation” not a criminal investigation. So there was no crime. Nor was the FBI investigating Trump. Nor is Trump being accused of obstructing an FBI investigation.

All those carefully documented memos, the painstaking labor, amount to absolutely nothing.

But that’s because there was no crime to begin with. The rest is innuendo. The drip drop of a scandal without one ever materializing. Comey’s testimony will be another drop from that leaky faucet. Its only substance is theatrical. Detailed documentation creates the appearance of wrongdoing. Constant hearings maintain the illusion that something is being uncovered. Even when nothing is.

The better question is why do the memos even exist?

The left would like to believe that Comey was gathering evidence on President Trump. But they don’t contain anything incriminating about him. Instead Comey was trying to preemptively protect himself. To understand that is to understand who Comey is and why he got into this mess.